I am not a real estate attorney.
This guy is correct, and there were a couple other prior posters who had essentially the same info.
Old 'metes and bounds' legal descriptions will often mark a property limit to the centerline of the road. This is common in old legal maps and in rural areas.
As property is purchased for development in more-urban areas, the division of land is required to be 'platted.' This assigns planned lot sizes that meet the regulations locally for lot size, % of plot coverage for development of housing, or commercial or industrial use.
As part of the plat approval process, the land is subdivided to meet the land development code as-adopted by the authority having jurisdiction. In rural settings this is often a county government. If the land is within the boundaries of a village or township, or a city, then there are usually more-restrictive criteria which will need to be met for the subdivision of the property. Part of the process for development is compliance with a 'future land use' plan which is required for all areas of a certain population, even if your land area is allowed a current density of 1 dwelling unit per 10 acres. There will be other areas of real property within the county, let us say, that will have much-higher allowable density. The larger county area will have a 'future land use' plan that specifies land use, density, and generally, development.
As you move into the smaller areas occupied by villages, townships, and cities, more-restrictive regulations typically referred to a zoning come into play. They often are found in the land development code for that particular jurisdiction, villages, townships, and cities.
Someone has a 640 acre plot of land that has an old 'metes and bounds' legal description. That's one square mile. They want to develop it. They submit a plan to sub-divide the land. Because of the 'future land use' plan, and the local governmental jurisdiction zoning regulations/land development code, they are allowed to have X, Y and Z densities of housing, A, B, and C uses for commercial development, and D, E, and F uses for industrial development. They will also have to consider open space for recreation, utilities, roadways, and probably a unit cost per dwelling unit to go into a fund for schools. And, don't forget public safety needs: police, fire, and EMS.
So the area where housing for single family dwellings is subdivided into lots of record. When this is done, the lots do not extend 'to the middle of the road.' There is a right-of-way established which takes into account the number of lanes of surface streets. Since this is going to be single family homes inside a subdivision, the planning firm consults the land development code and determines the minimum size of right of way that can be used. The right of way typically includes a roadway, a swale on either side, a pedestrian walkway, a utility easement, and other easements that meet the needs of development like drainage easements.
So the right of way is 45 ft wide. That's 22-1/2 ft on either side of the roadway centerline. Allocate 10 ft of paved roadway, each direction leaving 12-1/2 ft. Now allocate a 7-1/2 ft swale and a 5 ft pedestrian walkway carved-out of the right of way. That's your right of way utilization. The utility easement is usually part of the swale measurement, and may be called-out as for example 4 ft for utilities, and 3-1/2 ft for the remaining swale, which is used for drainage of the impervious roadway's runoff rainwater.
The property owners plot of land as-shown on the plat map
does not run to the center of the street. The plot is the homeowner's land boundaries of record, on which he pays taxes. The
plat is the official record of the subdivided land the developer has approved for development. This shows the plots of the individual homeowners' parcels of record, the rights of way which are typically deeded to the local government, and because of this are removed from the tax rolls. Once the developer makes the site improvements in civil engineering required to develop the land, and it is turned over to the local government, the developer no longer owns it, nor is responsible for its maintenance or taxes. Since the right of way is now owned by the village, township, city, or county, it comes-off the tax rolls.
In cases where the 'metes and bounds' descriptions place homeowners' boundaries to the center of the roadways, if the homeowners have never deeded rights of way to the local government, they are responsible for maintenance of the roadway and taxes, as they do own the roadway.
Utilities servicing these areas will have some type of recorded instrument allowing them to place power lines, water service, sewage lines, gas lines or whatever other utilities across the individual lots in order to service them. It is not uncommon for the only utilities allowed to be electric and telephone lines, with water and sewage to be provided by each homeowner via wells and septic tanks/fields.
So the bottom line is that in platted subdivisions, for the privilege of being allowed to develop the land, the property developers give land for rights of way to the local government. Within the rights of way are roadways, walkways, utility easements, and other easements and allocations of the land to meet the needs of the land development. Your property boundary stops where the right of way begins, and your property responsibilities are usually to maintain the area between the edge of the pavement and the plot boundary for your piece of land, on which your home rests.
Some jurisdictions do not allow swale parking, others allow it for the residents, but not for overnight parking of commercial trucks. This is spelled out in your zoning regulations, and two places to find nearly all of these are municode.com and American Legal Publishing. You can also look at your governmental jurisdiction's website, and find a link to probably either one of these websites.
Can the worker park in front of your home, on a swale that you must maintain? Unfortunately, if swale parking is allowed, the answer is probably in nearly-all cases, 'yes.' If it is a designated commercial vehicle (look for the weight values which are supposed to be posted on a commercial vehicle) then it may be required to meet some daylight time code parking regulation. They cannot block your egress from your home to the roadway, and there may be some line-of-sight triangle dimensional measurement where the driveway intersects the roadway pavement. This is to provide you with a line of sight to exit your driveway safely.
Problems like this can be frustrating, and if you get carried-away, dangerous to your health. Try the reasoned approach, and if that gets you nowhere, you tried. Then call the authorities in blue with the badges and see what happens.
I hold certifications as a plans examiner, fire inspector, and life safety code inspector. I have worked as all of these, and as a planner.
Taking some pictures before the work starts, and the parking by vehicles other than your vehicles tears-up the land, may give you some leverage in getting the contractor to assume responsibility for damage to the swale that you are responsible for maintaining. Take it to the building dept who issued the permits for the work being done, ask to speak with the building official, and if you get the brush-off, be sure to inform them your next stop is going to be the city manager's office, the town or village administrator's office, or the county manager's office.
It really depends on what area you live in. There are differences between states, and what type of lot you have. If you are in a rural area, you can own up to the centerline of the road.
But...if you are in a platted subdivision...your lot lines are (generally speaking) 15-ft or so from the curb, with an additional easement that is on your property (10-ft is typical around here). This can vary by development type and when the lot was platted. Also, the road is not always perfectly centered in the right-of-way.
The attached aerial photo is the development where I live. I only own that which is within my lot lines. The 15-ft strip of grass, landscaping, driveway, sprinklers between the curb and my lot line is not my property. I don't pay taxes on it, I just maintain it. I would not be allowed to park a vehicle in the grass there on a regular basis, but if a construction worker or other person was parked there temporarily...the police would be unlikely to do anything about it short of asking them to kindly move it. Anyone of the general public can walk there, protest, do yoga or dance a jig.
The additional 10-ft easement on the front of my lot can contain utilities, storm sewer pipes, etc and can be dug up for any reason...but I still own it and could trespass someone other than a utility/city worker performing work.
